Titan/Chasms 




Titan of Chasms 



The Grand Canvon of Arizona 



THE TITAX..OF CHASMS 

Bv cHC. HIGGIXS 

THE SCIENTIFIC EXPLORER 

By J. AV. POWELL 

THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 

By CHAS. F. LUMMIS 

INFORMATION FOR TOURISTS 




Fortieth Thousand 

PASSENGER DEPARTMENT 

THE SANTA FE 

CHICAGO. 1903. 



I ( "35 






THE TITAN OF CHASMS 



BY C. A. HIGGINS 



Its History 

The Colorado is one of the great rivers of North America. Formed in 
Southern Utah by the confluence of the Green and Grand, it intersects the 
northwestern corner of Arizona, and, becoming the eastern boundary of 
Nevada and California, flows southward until it reaches tidewater in the Gulf 
of California, Mexico. It drains a territory of 300,000 square miles, and, 
traced back to the rise of its principal source, is 2,000 miles long. At two 
points, Needles and Yuma on the California boundary, it is crossed by a rail- 
road. Elsewhere its course lies far from Caucasian settlements and far from 
the routes of common travel, in the heart of a vast region fenced on the one 
hand by arid plains or deep forests and on the other by formidable mountains. 

The early Spanish explorers first reported it to the civilized world in 1540, 
two separate expeditions becoming acquainted with the river for a compara- 
tively short distance above its mouth, and another, journeying from the Moki 
Pueblos northwestward across the desert, obtaining the first view of the Big 
Canyon, failing in every effort to descend the can^-on wall, and spying the 
river only from afar. 

Again, in 1776, a Spani.sh priest traveling southward through Utah struck 
off from the Virgin River to the southeast and found a practicable crossing at 
a point that still bears the name " Vado de los Padres." 

For more than eighty years thereafter the Big Canyon remained unvisited 
except by the Indian, the Mormon herdsman, and the trapper, although the 
Sitgreaves expedition of 185 1, journeying westward, struck the river about 
150 miles above Yuma, and Lieutenant Whipple in 1854 made a survey for a 
practicable railroad route along the thirty-fifth parallel, where the Santa Fe 
Pacific has since been constructed. 

The establishment of military posts in New Mexico and Utah having made 
desirable the use of a waterway for the cheap transportation of supplies, in 
1857 the "War Department dispatched an expedition in charge of Lieutenant 
Ives to explore the Colorado as far from its mouth as navigation should be 
found practicable. Ives ascended the river in a specially constructed steam- 
boat to the head of Black Canyon, a few miles below the confluence of the 



Virgin River in Nevada, where further navigation became impossible; then, 
returning to the Needles, he set off across the country toward the northeast. 
He reached the Big Canyon at Diamond Creek and at Cataract Creek in the 
spring of 1858, and from the latter point made a wnde southward detour around 
the San Francisco Peaks, thence northeastward to the Moki Tueblos, thence 
eastward to Fort Defiance, and so back to civilization. 

That IS the history of the explorations of the Colorado up to forty years 
ago. Its exact course was unknown for many hundred miles, even its origin 
being a matter of conjecture. It was difficult to approach within a distance of 
two or three miles from the channel, while descent to the river's edge could be 
hazarded only at wide intervals, inasmuch as it lay in an appalling fissure at 
the foot of seemingly impassable cliff terraces that led down from the border- 
ing plateau; and to attempt its navigation was to court death. It was known 
in a general way that the entire channel between Nevada and Utah was of 
the same titanic character, reaching its culmination nearly midway in its 
course through Arizona. 

In 1869 Maj. J. W. Powell undertook the exploration of the river with nine 
men and four boats, starting from Green River City, on the Green River, in 
Utah. The project met with the most urgent remonstrance from those who 




1 he Loiorado, J-oof of liright Angel Trail. 
4 



were best acquainted with the rej^ion, includini;- the Indians, who maintained 
that boats could not possibly live in any one of a score of rapids and falls 
known to them, to say nothing of the vast unknown stretches in which at any 
moment a Niagara might be disclosed. It was also current]}' believed that for 
hundreds of miles the river disappeared wholly beneath the surface of the earth. 
Powell launched his flotilla on jNlay 24th, and on August 30th landed at the 
mouth of the Virgin River, more than one thousand miles b}- the river channel 
from the place of starting, minus two boats and four men. One of the men had 
left the expedition by way of an Indian reservation agency before reaching 
Arizona, and three, after holding out against unprecedented terrors for many 
weeks, had finally become daunted, choosing to encounter the perils of an 
unknown desert rather than to brave any longer the frightful menaces of that 
Stygian torrent. These three, unfortunately making their appearance on the 
plateau at a time when a recent depredation was colorably chargeable upon 
them, were killed by Indians, their story of having come thus far down the 
river in boats being wholly discredited by their captors. 

Powell's journal of the trip is a fascinating tale, written in a compact and 
modest st3'le, which, in spite of its reticence, tells an epic story of purest 
heroism. It definitely estal^lished the scene of his exploration as the most 
wonderful geological and spectacular phenomenon known to mankind, and^ 
justified the name which had been bestowed upon it — The Grand Canvon — ^ 
sublimest of gorges; Titan of chasms. Many scientists have since visited it, 
and, in the aggregate, a large number of unprofessional lovers of nature; but 
until a few 3'ears ago no adequate facilities were provided for the general 
sight-seer, and the world's most stupendous panorama was known principally 
through report, by reason of the discomforts and difficulties of the trip, which 
deterred all except the most indefatigable enthusiasts. Even its geographical 
location is the subject of widespread misapprehension. 

Its title has been pirated for application to relatively insignificant canyons 
in distant parts of the country, and thousands of tourists have been led to 
believe that they saw the Grand Canyon, when, in fact, they looked upon a 
totally different scene, between which and the real Grand Canyon there is no 
more comparison " than there is between the Alleghanies or Trosachs and the 
Himalayas." 

There is but one Grand Canyon. Nowhere in the world has its like been 
found. 

Jis Seen From the Rim 

Stolid, indeed, is he who can front the awful scene and view its unearthly 
splendor of color and form without quaking knee or tremulous breath. An 
inferno, swathed in soft celestial fires; a whole chaotic under- world, just 
emptied of primeval floods and waiting for a new creative word; eluding all 
sense of perspective or dimension, outstretching the faculty of measurement, 
overlapping the confines of definite apprehension- a boding, terrible thing, 
unflinchingly real, yet spectral as a dream. The beholder is at first unimpressed 
by any detail; he is overwhelmed by the aiscnib/c oi a stupendous panorama, 
a thousand square miles in extent, that lies wholly beneath the eye, as if he 
stood upon a mountain peak instead of the level brink of a fearful chasm in the 
plateau, whose opposite shore is thirteen miles away. A labyrinth of huge 
architectural forms, endlessly varied in design, fretted with ornamental devices, 
festooned with lace-like webs formed of talus from the upper cliff's and painted 
with every color known to the palette in pure transparent tones of marvelous 
delicacy. Never was picture more harmonious, nev^er flower more exquisitely 




The River and tiw Lar.xon W'aH. 



Copyright, X36S, by U. G. Pvabody. 



beautiful. It flashes instant communication of all that architecture and paint- 
ing and music for a thousand years have gropingly striven to express. It is the 
soul of Michael Angelo and of Beethoven. 

A canyon, truly, but not after the accepted type. An intricate system of 
canyons, rather, each subordinate to the river channel in the midst, which in 
its turn is subordinate to the whole effect. That river channel, the profoundest 
depth, and actually more than 6,000 feet below the point of view, is in seeming 
a rather insignificant trench, attracting the eye more by reason of its somber 
tone and mysterious suggestion than by any appreciable characteristic of a 
chasm. It is perhaps five miles distant in a straight line, and its uppermost 
rims are nearly 4,000 feet beneath the observer, whose measuring capacity is 
entirely inadequate to the demand made by such magnitudes. One can not 
believe the distance to be more than a mile as the crow flies, before descending 
the wall or attempting some other form of actual measurement. 

Mere brain knowledge counts for little against the illusion under which 
the organ of vision is here doomed to labor. Yonder cliff, darkening from 
white to gray, j-ellow, and brown as your glance descends, is taller than the 
Washington Monument. The Auditorium in Chicago would not cover one-half 
its perpendicular span. Yet it does not greatly impress you. You idly toss a 
pebble toward it, and are surprised to note how far the missile falls short. 
By and by you will learn that it is a good half mile distant, and when you go 



i 



down the trail you will gain an abiding sense of its real proportions. Yet, 
relatively, it is an unimportant detail ot the scene. Were Vulcan to cast it 
bodily into the chasm directly beneath your feet, it would pass for a bowlder, 
if, indeed, it were discoverable to the unaided eye. 

Yet the immediate chasm itself is only the first step of a long terrace that 
leads down to the innermost gorge and the river. Roll a heavy stone to the 
rim and let it go. It falls sheer the height of a church or an Eitfel Tower, 
according to the point selected for such pastime, and explodes like a bomb on 
a projecting ledge. If, happily, any considerable fragments remain, they bound 
onward like elastic balls, leaping in wild parabola from point to point, snapping 
trees like straws; bursting, crashing, thundering down the declivities until they 
make a last plunge over the brink of a void; and then there comes languidly 
up the cliff sides a faint, distant roar, and your bowlder that had withstood the 
buffets of centuries lies scattered as wide as Wycliffe's ashes, although the 
final fragment has lodged only a little way, so to speak, below the rim. Such 
performances are frequently given in these amphitheaters without human aid, 
by the mere undermining of the rain, or perhaps it is here that Sisyphus 
rehearses his unending task. Often in the silence of night some tremendous 
fragment has been heard crashing from terrace to terrace with shocks like 
thunder peal. 

The spectacle is so symmetrical, and so completely excludes the outside 
world and its accustomed standards, it is with difficulty one can acquire any 
notion of its immensity. Were it half as deep, half as broad, it would be no 
less bewildering, so utterly does it baffle human grasp. 

The Trip to the K^Wer 

Only by descending into the canyon ma}' one arrive at anything like 
comprehension of its proportions, and the descent can not be too urgently 
commended to every visitor who is sufficiently robust to bear a reasonable 
amount of fatigue. There are four paths down the southern wall of the canyon 
in the granite gorge district — Mj-stic Spring, Bright Angel, Berry's and Hance's 
trails. The following account of a descent of the old Hance trail will serve to 
indicate the nature of such an experience to-day, except that the trip may now 
be safely made with greater comfort. 

For the first two miles it is a sort of Jacob's ladder, zigzagging at an unre- 
lenting pitch. At the end of two miles a comparatively gentle slope is reached, 
known as the blue limestone level, some 2,500 feet below the rim, that is to say 
— for such figures, have to be impressed objectively upon the mind — five times 
the height of St. Peter's, the Pyramid of Cheops, or the Strasburg Cathedral; 
eight times the height of the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty; eleven times the 
height of Bunker Hill Monument. Looking back from this level the huge 
picturesque towers that border the rim shrink to pigmies and seem to crown 
a perpendicular wall, unattainably far in the sky. Yet less than one-half the 
descent has been made. 

Overshadowed by sandstone of chocolate hue the way grows gloomy and 
foreboding, and the gorge narrows. The traveler stops a moment beneath a 
slanting cliff 500 feet high, where there is an Indian grave and potterv scattered 
about. A gigantic niche has been worn in the face of this cavernous cliff, 
which, in recognition of its fancied Egyptian character, was named the Temple 
of Sett by the painter, Thomas Moran. 

A little beyond this temple it becomes necessary to abandon the animals. 
The river is still a mile and a half distant. The way narrows now to a mere 
notch, where two wagons could barely pass, and the granite begins to. tower 



gloomily overhead, for we have dropped below the sandstone and have entered 
the archaean — a frowning- black rock, streaked, veined, and swirled with vivid 
red and white, smoothed and polished by the rivulet and beautiful as a mosaic. 
Obstacles are encountered in the form of steep, interposing crags, past which 
the brook has found a way, but over which the pedestrian must clamber. 
After these lesser difficulties come sheer descents, which at present are passed 
by the aid of ropes. 

The last considerable drop is a 40-foot bit by the side of a pretty cascade, 
where there are just enough irregularities in the wall to give toe-hold. The 
narrowed cleft becomes exceedingly wayward in its course, turning- abruptly 
to right and left, and working- down into twilight depth. It is very still. At 
every turn one looks to see the embouchure upon the river, anticipating the 
sudden shock of the unintercepted roar of waters. When at last this is reached, 
over a final downward clamber, the traveler stands upon a sandy rift confronted 
by nearly vertical walls many hundred feet high, at whose base a black torrent 
pitches in a giddying onward slide that gives him momentarily the sensation of 
slipping into an abyss. 




.1 J'iU/j uj: Bright Angel Trail. 
8 



i 



With so little labor may one come to the Colorado River in the heart of its 
most tremendous channel, and gaze upon a sight that heretofore has had fewer 
witnesses than have the wilds of Africa. Dwarfed by such prodigious mountain 
shores, which rise immediately from the water at an angle that would deny 
footing to a mountain sheep, it is not easy to estimate confidently the width and 
volume of the river. Choked by the stubborn granite at this point, its width is 
probably between 250 and 300 feet, its velocity fifteen miles an hour, and its 
volume and turmoil equal to the Whirlpool Rapids of Niagara. Its rise in time 
of heavy rain is rapid and appalling, for the walls shed almost instantly all the 
water that falls upon them. Drift is lodged in the crevices thirty feet overhead. 

For only a few hundred yards is the tortuous stream visible, but its effect 
upon the senses is perhaps the greater for that reason. Issuing as from a 
mountain side, it slides with oily smoothness for a space and suddenly breaks 
into violent waves that comb back against the current and shoot unexpectedly 
here and there, while the volume sways tide-like from side to side, and long 
curling breakers form and hold their outline lengthwise of the shore, despite 
the seemingly irresistible velocity of the water. The river is laden with drift 
(huge tree trunks), wnich it tosses like chips in its terrible play. 

Standing upon that shore one can barely credit Powell's achievement, in 
spite of its absolute authenticity. Never was a more magnificent self-reliance 
displayed than by the man who not only tmdertook the passage of Colorado 
River but won his way. And after viewing a fraction of the scene at close 
range, one can not hold it to the discredit of three of his companions that they 
abandoned the undertaking not far below this point. The fact that those who 
persisted got through alive is hardly more astonishing than that any should 
have had the hardihood to persist. For it could not have been alone the priva- 
tion, the infinite toil, the unending suspense in constant menace of death that 
assaulted their courage ; these they had looked for; it was rather the unlifted 
gloom of those tartarean depths, the unspeakable horrors of an endless valley 
of the shadow of death, in which every step was irrevocable. 

Returning to the spot where the animals were abandoned, camp is made 
for the night. Next morning the way is retraced. Not the most fervid pictures 
of a poet's fancy could transcend the glories then revealed in the depths of the 
canyon; inky shadows, pale gildings of lofty spires, golden splendors of sun 
beating full on fagades of red and yellow, obscurations of distant peaks by veils 
of transient shower, glimpses of white towers half drowned in purple haze, 
suffusions of rosy light blended in reflection from a hundred tinted walls. 
Caught up to exalted emotional heights the beholder becomes unmindful of 
fatigue. He mounts on wings. He drives the chariot of the sun. 




Having returned to the plateau, it will be found that the descent into the 
canyon has bestowed a sense of intimacy that almost amounts to a mental grasp 
of the scene. The terrific deeps that part the walls of hundreds of castles and 
turrets of mountainous bulk may be approxmiately located in barely discernible 
pen-strokes of detail, and will be apprehended mainly through the memory of 
upward looks from the bottom., while towers and obstructions and yawning 
fissures that were deemed events of the trail will be wholly indistinguishable, 
although they are known to lie somewhere flat beneath the eye. The compar- 
ative insignificance of what are termed grand sights in other parts of the world 
is now clearly revealed. Twenty Yoscmites might lie unperceived anywhere 
below. Niagara, that Mecca of marvel seekers, would not here possess the 
dignity of a trout stream. Your companion, standing at a short distance on 
the verge, is an insect to the eye. 

Still, such particulars can not long hold the attention, for the panorama is 
the real overmastering charm. It is never twice the same. Although you 
think you have spelt out every temple and peak and escarpment, as the angle 
of sunlight changes there begins a ghostly advance of colossal forms from the 
farther side, and what you had taken to be the ultimate wall is seen to be made 
up of still other isolated sculptures, revealed now for the first time by 
silhouetting shadows. The scene incessantly changes, flushing and fading, 
advancing into crystalline clearness, retiring into slumberous haze. 

Should it chance to have rained heavily in the night, next morning the 
canyon is completely filled with fog. As the sun mounts, the curtain of mist 
suddenly breaks into cloud fleeces, and while you gaze these fleeces rise and 
dissipate, leaving the canyon bare. At once around the bases of the lowest 
cliffs white puffs begin to appear, creating a scene of unparalleled beauty as 
their dazzling cumuli swell and rise and their number multiplies, until once 
more they overflow the rim, and it is as if you stood on some land's end looking 
down upon a formless void. Then quickly comes the complete dissipation, and 
again the marshaling in the depths, the upward advance, the total suffusion and 
the speedy vanishing, repeated over and over luitil the warm walls have 
expelled their saturation. 

Long may the visitor loiter upon the verge, powerless to shake loose from 
the charm, tirelessly intent upon the silent transformations imtil the sun is low 
in the west. Then the canj^on sinks into mysterious purple shadow, the far 
Shinumo Altar is tipped with a golden ray, and against a leaden horizon the 
long line of the Echo Cliffs reflects a soft brilliance of indescribable beauty, a 
light that, elsewhere, surely never was on sea or land. Then darkness falls, 
and should there be a moon, the scene in part revives in silver light, a thousand 
spectral forms projected from inscrutable gloom; dreams of mountains, as in 
their sleep they brood on things eternal. 




I 




THE SCIENTIFIC EX'PLORER 

"BY J. W. POWELL 

The IVes and Wheeler Expeditions 

In the fall of 1857 Lieutenant Ives, of the engineer corps of the army, 
ascended the Colorado Riv^er on a trip of exploration with a little steamer 
called the Explorer ; he went as far as the mouth of the Rio Virgin. Falling 
back down river a few miles, Lieutenant Ives met a pack train which had 
followed him up the bank of the stream. Here he disembarked, and on the 
24th of March started with a land party to explore the eastern bank of the 
river ; making a long detour he ascended the plateau through which the Grand 
Canyon is cut, and in an adventurous journey he obtained views of the canyon 
along its lower course. On this trip J. S. Newberry was the geologist, and 
to him we are indebted for the first geological explanation of the canyon and 
the description of the high plateau through which it is formed. Doctor New- 
berry was not only an able geologist, but he was also a graphic writer, and his 
description of the canyon as far as it was seen by him is a classic in geology. 

In 1869 Lieutenant Wheeler was sent out by the chief engineer of the army 
to explore the Grand Canyon from below. In the spring he succeeded in reach- 
ing the mouth of Diamond Creek, which had previou.sly been seen by Doctor 
Newberry in 1858. Mr. Gilbert was the geologist of this expedition, and his 
studies of the canyon region during this and subsequent years have added 
greatly to our knowledge of this land of wonders. 



Major Powell's Several Trips 

In this same year I essayed to explore the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, 
together with the upper canyons of that stream and the great canyons of the 
lower portion of Green River. For this purpose I employed four rowboats 
and made the descent from what is now Green River station through the 
whole course of canyons to the mouth of the Rio Virgin, a distance of more 
than a thousand miles. 




Fro"! Kaibab Plateau, Look//!'' Sout/i. 



1 



In the spring of 1870 I again started with three boats and descended 
the river to the Crossing of the Fathers, where I met a pack train and went out 
with a party of men to explore ways down into the Grand Canyon from the 
north, and devoted the summer, fall, winter, and following spring to this under- 
taking. 

In the summer of 187 1 I returned to the rowboats and descended through 
Marble Canyon to the Grand Canyon of Arizona, and then through the 
greater part of the Grand Canyon itself. Subsequent years were then given to 
exploration of the country adjacent to the Grand Canyon. On these trips Mr. 
Gilbert, the geologist, w^ho had been with Lieutenant Wheeler, and Capt. C. E. 
Dutton, were my geological companions. On the second boat trip, and during 
all the subsequent years of exploration in this region, Prof. A. H. Thompson 
was my geographical companion, assisted by a number of topographical engi- 
neers. 

In 1882 Mr. C. D. Walcott, as my assistant in the United States Geological 
Survey, went with me into the depths of the Grand Canyon. We descended 
from the summit of the Kaibab Plateau on the north by a trail which we built 
dow^n a side canyon in a direction toward the mouth of the Little Colorado 
River. The descent was made in the fall, and a small party of men was 
left with Mr. Walcott in this region of stupendous depths to make a study of the 
geology of an important region of labyrinthian gorges. Here, with his party, 
he was shut up for the winter, for it was known when we left him that snows 
on the summit of the plateau would prevent his return to the upper region 
before the sun should melt them the next spring. Mr. Walcott is now the 
Director of the United States Geological Survey. 

After this year I made no substantial additions to my geologic and scenic 
knowledge of the Grand Canyon, though I afterward studied the archaeology to 
the south and east throughout a wide region of ruined pueblos and cliff 
dwellings. 

Since my first trip in boats many others have essayed to follow me, 
and year by year such expeditions have met with disaster ; some hardy adven- 
turers are buried on the banks of the Green, and the graves of others are 
scattered at intervals along the course of the Colorado. 

In 1889 the brave F. M. Brown lost his life. But finally a party of railroad 
engineers, led by R. B. Stanton, started at the head of Marble Canyon and 
made their way down the river as they extended a survey for a railroad along 
its course. 

Other adventurous travelers have visited portions of the Grand Canyon 
region, and Mr. G. Wharton James has extended his travels widely over the 
region in the interest of popular science and the new literature created in the 
last decades of the nineteenth century. And now I once more return to a 
reminiscent account of the Grand Canyon, for old men love to talk of the 
past. 

The Plateau Region 

The Grand Canyon of Arizona and the Marble Canyon constitute one great 
gorge carved by a mighty river through a high plateau. On the northeast and 
north a line of cliffs" face this plateau by a bold escarpment of rock. Climb 
these cliffs and you must ascend from 800 to 1,000 feet, but on their summit you 
will stand upon a plateau stretching a\yay to the north. Now turn to face the 
south and you will overlook the cfiff and what appears to be a valley below. 
From the foot of the cliff the country rises to the south to a great plateau through 
which the Marble and the Grand canyons are carved. This plateau terminate.-i 

13 



abruptly on the west by the Grand Wash Cliffs, which is a high escarpment 
caused by a " fault " (as the geologist calls it), that is, the strata of sandstone 
and limestone are broken off, and to the west of the fracture they are dropped 
down several thousand feet, so that standing upon the edge of the plateau 
above the Grand Wash Cliffs you may look off to the west over a vast region of 
desert from which low volcanic mountains rise that seem like purple mounds in 
sand-clad lands. 

On the east the great plateau breaks down in a very irregular way into the 
valley of the Little Colorado, and where the railroad ascends the plateau from the 
east it passes over picturesque canyons that run down into the Little Colorado. 
On the south the plateau is merged into the great system of mountains that 
stand in Southern Arizona. W^here the plateau ends and the mountains begin is 
not a well-defined line. The plateau through which the Grand Canyon is cut 
is a region of great scenic interest. Its surface is from six tomore than eight 
thousand feet above the level of the sea. The Grand Plateau is composed of 
many subsidiary plateaus, each one having its own peculiar and interesting 
feature. 

The Kaibab Plateau, to the northeast of the Grand Can5-on, is covered with 
a pine forest which is intercepted by a few meadows with here and there a 
pond or lakelet. It is the home of deer and bear. 

To the west is the Shinumo Plateau in which the Shinumo Canyon is 
carved ; and on the cliffs of this canyon and in the narrow valley along its 
course the Shinumo ruins are found — the relics of a prehistoric race. 

To the west of the Shinumo Plateau is the Kanab Plateau, with ruins scat- 
tered over it, and on its northern border the beautiful Mormon town of Kanab 
is found, and the canyon of Kanab Creek separates the Shinumo Plateau from 
the Kanab Plateau. It begins as a shallow gorge and gradually increases in 
depth until it reaches the Colorado River itself, at a depth of more than 
4,000 feet below the surface. Vast amphitheaters are found in its walls and 
titanic pinnacles rise from its depths. One Christmas daj^ I waded up this creek. 
It was one of the most delightful walks of my life, from a land of flowers to a 
land of snow. 

To the west of the Kanab Plateau are the Uinkaret Mountains — an 
immense group of volcanic cones upon a plateau. Some of these cones stand 
very near the brink of the Grand Canyon and from one of them a flood of 
basalt was poured into the canyon itself. Not long ago geologically, but 
rather long when reckoned in years of human history, this flood of lava rolled 
down the canj^on for more than fifty miles, filling it to the depth of ti^'o or tJiree 
hundred feet and diverting the course of the river against one or the other 
of its banks. Many of the cones are of red cinder, while sometimes the lava is 
piled up into huge mountains which are covered with forest. To the west 
of the Uinkaret Mountains spreads the great Shiwits Plateau, crowned by 
Mount Dellenbough. 

Past the south end of these plateaus runs the Colorado River ; southward 
through Marble Canyon and in the Grand Canyon, then northwestward past the 
Kaibab and Shinumo Canyon, then southwestward past the Kanab Plateau, 
Uinkaret Mountains to the southernmost point of the Shiwits Plateau, and then 
northwestward to the Grand Wash Cliffs. Its distance in this course is little 
more than 300 miles — but the 300 miles of river are set on every side 
with cliffs, buttes, towers, pinnacles, amphitheaters, caves, and terraces, exquis- 
itely storm-carved and painted in an endless variety of colors. 

The plateau to the south of the Grand Canyon, which we need not describe 
in parts, is largely covered with a gigantic forest. There are many volcanic 




rli I'onit a)td Colorado Rh'cr. 



hi.l II. G. Peabody. 



mountains and many treeless valleys. In the high forest there are beautiful 
glades with little stretches of meadow which are spread in summer with a par- 
terre of flowers of many colors. This upper region is the garden of the world. 
When I was first there bear, deer, antelope, and wild turkeys aboimded, but now 
they are becoming scarce. Widely scattered throughout the plateau are small 
canyons, each one a few miles in length and a few hundred feet in depth. 
Throughout their course cliff-dweller ruins are found. In the highland glades 
and along the valley, pueblo ruins are widely scattered, but the strangest sights 
of all the things due to prehistoric man are the cave dwellings that are dug in 
the tops of cinder cones and the villages that were built in the caves of volcanic 
cliffs. If now I have succeeded in creating a picture of the plateau I will 
attempt a brief description of the canyon. 

flfarble Canyon 

Above the Paria the great river runs down a canyon which it has cut 
through one plateau. On its way it flows with comparative quiet through beauti- 
ful scenery, with glens that are vast amphitheaters which often overhang great 



springs and ponds of water deeply embosomed in the cliffs. From the southern 
escarpment of this plateau the great Colorado Plateau rises by a comparatively 
gentle acclivity, and Marble Canyon starts with walls but a few score feet 
in height until they reach an altitude of about 5,000 feet. On the way the 
channel is cut into beds of rock of lower geologic horizon, or greater geologic age. 
These rocks are sandstones and limestones. Some beds are very hard, others 
are soft and friable. The friable rocks wash out and the harder rocks remain 
projecting from the walls, so that every wall presents a set of stony shelves. 
These shelves rise along the wall toward the south as new shelves set in 
from below. 

In addition to this shelving structure the walls are terraced and the cliffs 
of the canyon are set back one upon the other. Then these canyon walls are 
interrupted by side streams which themselves have carved lateral canyons, some 
small, others large, but all deep. In these side gorges the scenery is varied 
and picturesque ; deep clefts are seen here and there as you descend the river 
— clefts furnished with little streams along which mosses and other plants 
grow. At low water the floor of the great canyon is more or less exposed, and 
where it flows over limestone rocks beautiful marbles are seen in many colors ; 
saffron, pink, and blue prevail. Sometimes a fagade or wall appears rising ver- 
tically from the water for thousands of feet. At last the canyon abruptly ends 
in a confusion of hills beyond which rise towenng cliffs, and the group of hills 
are nestled in the bottom of a valley-like region which is surrounded by cliffs 
more than a mile in altitude. 

The Grand Canyon 

From here on for many miles the whole character of the canyon changes. 
First a dike appears ; this' is a wall of black basalt crossing the river ; it is 
of lava thrust up from below through a huge crevice broken in the rock by 
earthquake agency. On the east the Little Colorado comes ; here it is a river 
of salt water, and it derives its salt a few miles up the stream. The main Colo- 
rado flows along the eastern and southern wall. Climbing this for a few hun- 
dred feet you may look off toward the northwest and gaze at the cliffs of the 
Kaibab Plateau. 

This is the point where we built a trail down a side canyon where Mr. Wal- 
cott was to make his winter residence and study of the region ; it is very com- 
plicated and exhibits a vast series of imconformable rocks of high antiquity. 
These lower rocks are of many colors ; in large part they are shales. The 
region, which appears to be composed of bright-colored hills washed naked by 
the rain, is, in fact, beset with a multitude oi winding canyons with their own 
precipitous walls. It is a region of many canyons in the depths of the Grand 
Canyon itself. 

In this beautiful region Mr. Walcott, reading the book of geology, lived in 
a summerland during all of a long winter while the cliffs above were covered 
with snow which prevented his egress to the world. His companions, three 
young Mormons, longing for a higher degree of civilization, gazed wistfully at 
the snow-clad barriers by which they were inclosed. One was a draughtsman, 
another a herder of his stock, and the third his cook. They afterward told me 
that it was a long winter of homesickness, and that months dragged away 
as years, but Mr. Walcott himself had the great book of geology to read, and to 
him it was a winter of delight. 

A half dozen miles below the basaltic wall the river enters a channel 
carved in 800 or 1,000 feet of dark gneiss of very hard rock. Here the chan- 
nel is narrow and very swift and beset with rapids and falls. On the south and 

16 



southwest the wall rises abruptly from the water to the summit of the plateau 
for about 6,000 feet, but across the river on the north and west moimtains 
of gneiss and quartzites appear, sometimes rising to the height of a thousand 
feet. These are mountains in the bottom of a canyon. The buttes and pla- 
teaus of the inter-canyon region are composed of shales, sandstones, and lime- 
stones, which give rise to vast architectural shelving and to pinnacles and 
towers of gigantic proportions, the whole embossed with a marvelously minute 
system of fretwork carved by the artistic clouds. Looking beyond these 
mountains, buttes, and plateaus vistas of the walls of the great plateau are seen. 
From these walls project salients, and deep re-entrant angles appear. 

The whole scene is forever reminding you of mighty architectural pinnacles 
and towers and balustrades and arches and columns with lattice work and 
delicate carving. All of these architectural features are sublime by titanic paint- 
ing in varied hues — pink, red, brown, lavender, gray, blue, and black. In some 
lights the saffron prevails, in other lights vermilion, and yet in other lights the 
grays and blacks predominate. At times, and perhaps in rare seasons, clouds 
and cloudlets form in the canyon below and wander among the side canyons and 
float higher and higher until they are dissolved in the upper air, or perhaps they 
accumulate to hide great portions of the landscape. Then through rifts in the 
clouds vistas of Wonderland are seen. Such is that portion of the canyon around 
the great south bend of the Colorado River past the point of the Kaibab Plateau. 

jls Seen by the Geologist 

In the last chapter of my book entitled " The Canyons of the Colorado " I 
have described the Grand Canyon in the following terms : 

The Grand Canyon is a gorge 217 miles in length, through which flows a 
great river with many storm-born tributaries. It has a winding waj^, as rivers 
are wont to have. Its banks are vast structures of adamant, piled up in forms 
rarely seen in the mountains. 

Down by the river the walls are composed of black gneiss, slates, and schists, 
all greatly implicated and traversed by dikes of granite. Let this formation be 
called the black gneiss. It is usually about 800 feet in thickness. 

Then over the black gneiss are found 800 feet of quartzites, usually in very 
thin beds of many colors, but exceedingly hard, and ringing under the hammer 
like phonolite. These beds are dipping and unconformable with the rocks 
above. While they make but 800 feet of the wall or less they have a geologic 
thickness of 12,000 feet. Set up a row of books aslant; it is ten inches from the 
shelf to the top of the line of books, but there may be three feet of the books 
measured directly through the leaves. So these quartzites are aslant, and 
though of great geologic thickness they make but 800 feet of the wall. Your 
books may have many-colored bindings and differ greatly in their contents ; so 
these quartzites vary greatly from place to place along the wall, and in many 
places they entirely disappear. Let us call this formation the variegated 
quartzite. 

Above the quartzites there are 500 feet of sandstones. They are of a 
greenish hue, but are mottled with spots of brown and black by iron stains. 
They usually stand in a bold cliff, weathered in alcoves. Let this formation be 
called the cliff sandstone. 

Above the cliff sandstone there are 700 feet of bedded sandstones and lime- 
stones, which are massive sometimes and sometimes broken into thin strata. 
These rocks are often weathered in deep alcoves. Let this formation be called 
the alcove sandstone. 

Over the alcove sandstone there are 1,600 feet of limestone, in many places 



a beautiful marble, as in Marble Canyon. As it appears along the Grand 
Canyon it is always stained a brilliant red, for immediately over it there are thin 
seams of iron, and the storms have painted these limestones with pigments from 
above. Altogether this is the red-wall group. It is chiefly limestone. Let it 
be called the red-wall limestone. 

Above the red wall there are 800 feet of gray and bright red sandstone, 
alternating in beds that look like vast ribbons of landscape. Let it be called 
the banded sandstone. 

And over all, at the top of the wall, is the Aubrey limestone, 1,000 feet in 
thickness. This Aubrey has much gypsum in it, great beds of alabaster that 
are pure white in comparison with the great body of limestone below. In the 
same limestone there are enormous beds of chert, agates, and carnelians. This 
limestone is especially remarkable for its pinnacles and towers. Let it be 
called the tower limestone. 

These are the elements with which the walls are constructed, from black 
buttress below to alabaster tower above. All of these elements weather in 
different forms and are painted in different colors, so that the wall presents a 
highly complex fayade. A wall of homogeneous granite, like that in the 
Yosemite, is but a naked wall, whether it be 1,000 or 5,000 feet high. Hun- 
dreds and thousands of feet mean nothing to the eye when they stand in a 
meaningless front. A mountain covered by pure snow 10,000 feet high has 
but little more effect on the imagination than a inountain of snow 1,000 feet 
high — it is but more of the same thing — but a facade of seven systems of 
rock has its sublimity multiplied sevenfold. 




A Panoramic Vieiv of the Canyon. 



Consider next the horizontal elements of the Grand Canyon. The river 
meanders in great curves, which are themselves broken into curves of smaller 
magnitude. The streams that head far back in the plateau on either side 
come down in gorges and break the wall into sections. Each lateral canyon 
has a secondary system of laterals, and the secondary canyons are broken by 
tertiary canyons; so the crags are forever branching, like the limbs of an oak. 
That which has been described as a wall is such only in its grand effect. In 
detail it is a series of structures separated by a ramification of canj^ons, each 
having its own walls. Thus, in passing down the canyon it seems to be 
inclosed by walls, but oftener by salients — towering structures that stand 
between canyons that run back into the plateau. Sometimes gorges of the 
second or third order have met before reaching the brink of the Grand Canyon, 
and then great salients are cut off from the wall and stand out as buttes — 
huge pavilions in the architecture of the canyon. The scenic elements thus 
described are fused and combined in very different ways. 

Its Length 

We measured the length of the Grand Canyon by the length of the river 
running through it, but the running extent of wall can not be measured in this 
manner. In the black gneiss, which is at the bottom, the wall may stand above 
the river for a few hundred yards or a mile or two ; then to follow the foot of 
the wall you must pass into a lateral canyon for a long distance, perhaps miles, 
and then back again on the other side of the lateral canyon ; then along by 
the river until another lateral canyon is reached, which must be headed in the 
black gneiss. So for a dozen miles of river through the gneiss there may be a 
hundred miles of wall on either side. Climbing to the summit of the black 
gneiss and following the wall in the variegated quartzite, it is found to be 
stretched out to a still greater length, for it is cut with more lateral gorges. 
In like manner there is yet greater length of the mottled (or alcove) sandstone 
wall, and the red wall is still farther stretched out in ever-branching gorges. 

To make the distance for ten miles along the river by walking along the 
top of the red wall it would be necessary to travel several hundred miles. The 
length of the wall reaches its maximum in the banded sandstone, which is ter- 
raced more than any of the other formations. The tower limestone wall is 
less tortuous. To start at the head of the Grand Canyon on one of the terraces 
of the banded sandstone and follow it to the foot of the Grand Canyon, which 
by river is a distance of 217 miles, it would be necessary to travel many thou- 
sand miles by the winding way ; that is, the banded wall is many thousand 
miles in length. 

^s Seen Traveling T>oWn Stream 

For eight or ten miles below the mouth of the Little Colorado, the river is 
in the variegated quartzites, and a wonderful fretwork of forms and colors, 
peculiar to this rock, stretches back for miles to a labyrinth of the red-wall 
cliff; then below, the black gneiss is entered and soon has reached an altitude 
of 800 feet and sometimes rnore than 1,000 feet, and upon this black gneiss all 
the other structures in their wonderful colors are lifted. These continue for 
about seventy miles, when the black gneiss below is lost, for the walls are 
dropped down by the West Kaibab Fault and the river flows in the quartzites. 

Then for eighty miles the mottled (or alcove) sandstones are found in the 
river bed. The course of the canyon is a little south of west and is compara- 
tively straight. At the top of the^xd-wall limestone there is a broad terrace, 

19 



two or three miles in width, composed of hills of wonderful forms carved in the 
banded beds, and back of this is seen a cliff in the tower limestone. Along the 
lower course of this stretch the whole character of the canyon is changed by 
another set of complicating conditions. We have now reached a region of 
volcanic activity. After the canyons were cut nearly to their present depth, 
lavas poured out and volcanoes were built on the walls of the canyon, but not 
in the canyon itself, though at places rivers of molten rock rolled down the 
walls into the Colorado. 

The canyon for the next eighty miles is a compound of that found where 
the river is in the black gneiss and that found where the dead volcanoes stand 
on the brink of the wall. In the first stretch, where the gneiss is at the founda- 
tion, we have a great bend to the south, and in the last stretch, where the gneiss 
is below and the dead volcanoes above, another great southern detour is found. 
These two great beds are separated by eighty miles of comparatively straight 
river. 

Let us call this first great bend the Kaibab reach of the canyon, and the 
straight part the Kanab reach, for the Kanab Creek heads far off in the plateau 
to the north and joins the Colorado at the beginning of the middle stretch. 
The third great southern bend is the Shiwits stretch. Thus there are three 
distinct portions of the Grand Canyon : The Kaibab section, characterized 
more by its buttes and salients ; the Kanab section, characterized by its 
comparatively straight walls with volcanoes on the brink, and the Shiwits 
section, which is broken into great terraces with gneiss at the bottom and 
volcanoes at the top. 

The Wor% of Erosion 

The erosion represented in the canyons, although vast, is but a small part 
of the great erosion of the region, for between the cliffs blocks have been 
carried away far superior in magnitude to those necessary to fill the canyons. 
Probably there is no portion of the whole region from which there have not 
been more than a thousand feet degraded, and there are districts from which 
more than 30,000 feet of rock have been carried away; altogether there is a 
district of country more than 200,000 sqviare miles in extent, from which, on the 
average, more than 6,000 feet have been eroded. Consider a rock 200,000 square 
miles in extent and a mile in thickness, against which the clouds have hurled 
their storms, and beat it into sands, and the rills have carried the sands into the 
creeks, and the creeks have carried them into the rivers, and the Colorado has 
carried them into the sea. 

We think of the mountains as forming clouds about their brows, but the 
clouds have formed the mountains. Great continental blocks are upheaved 
from beneath the sea by internal geologic forces that fashion the earth. Then 
the wandering clouds, the tempest-bearing clouds, the rainbow-decked clouds, 
with mighty power and with wonderful skill, carve out valleys and canyons 
and fashion hills and cliffs and mountains. The clouds are the artists sublime. 

Winter and Cloud Effects 

In winter some of the characteristics of the Grand Canyon are emphasized. 
The black gneiss below, the variegated quartzite, and the green or alcove 
sandstone form the foundation for the mighty red wall. The banded sandstone 
entablature is crowned by the tower limestone. In winter this is covered with 
snow. Seen from below, these changing elements seem to graduate into the 
heavens, and no plane of demarcation between wall and blue firmament can be 
seen. The heavens constitute a portion of the fagade and mount into a vast 



dome from wall to wall, spanning the Grand Canyon with empyrean blue. So 
the earth and the heavens are blended in one vast structure. 

When the clouds play in the canyon, as they often do in the rainy season, 
another set of effects is produced. Clouds creep out of canyons and wind into 
other canyons. The heavens seem to be alive, not moving as move the heavens 
over a plain, in one direction with the wind, but following the luultiplied 
courses of these gorges. In this manner the little clouds seem to be indi\-idu- 
alized, to have wills and souls of their own and to be going on diverse errands — 
a vast assemblage of self-willed clouds faring here and there, intent upon 
purposes hidden in their own breasts. In imagination the clouds belong to the 
sky, and when they are in the canyon the skies come down into the gorges and 
cling to the cliffs and lift them up to immeasurable heights, for the sky must 
still be far away. Thus they lend infinity to the walls. 

You can not see the Grand Canyon in one view as if it were a changeless 
spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil 
from month to month through its labyrinths. It is a region more difficult to 
traverse than the Alps or the Himalayas, but if strength and courage are sufficient 
for the task, by a year's toil a concept of sublimity can be obtained never again 
to be equaled on the hither side of paradise. 




On Grand View Poinl. 



Copyright. ISXt, by II. G. Peabody. 




THE GREA TEST THING IN THE WORLD 



•BY CHARLES F. LUMMIS 



"The greatest thino^ in the world." That is a large phrase and an over- 
worked one, and hardened travelers do not take it lig-htly upon the tongue. 
Noticeably it is most glibly in use with those but lately, and for the first time, 
wandered beyond their native state or county, and as every province has its 
own local brag of biggest things, the too credulous tourist will find a superla- 
tive everywhere. And superlatives are unsafe without wide horizons of com- 
parison. 

Yet in every sort there is, of course, somewhere "the biggest thing in the 
world " of its kind. It is a good word, when spoken in season and not abused 
in careless ignorance. 

I believe there is and can be no dispute that the term applies literally to 
several things in the immediate region of the Grand Canyon of Arizona. As I 
have more than once written (and it never yet has been controverted), probably 
no other equal area on earth contains so many supreme marvels of so many 
kinds — so many astounding sights, so many masterpieces of Nature's handi- 
work, so vast and conclusive an encyclopedia of the world-building processes, 
so impressive monuments of prehistoric man, so many triumphs of man still 
in the tribal relation — as what I have called the Southwestern Wonderland. 
This includes a large part of New Mexico and Arizona, the area which geo- 
graphically and ethnographically we may count as the Grand Canyon region. 
Let me mention a few wonders : 

The largest and by far the most beautiful of all petrified forests, with 
several hundred square miles whose surface is carpeted with agate chips and 
dotted with agate trunks two to four feet in diameter; and just across one 
valley a buried "forest" whose huge silicified — not agatized — logs show their 
ends under fifty feet of sandstone. 

The largest natural bridge in the world — 200 feet high, over 500 feet span, 
and over 600 feet wide, up and down stream, and with an orchard on its top 
and miles of stalactite caves under its abutments. 

The largest variety and display of geologically recent volcanic action in 
North America; with 60-mile lava flows, 1,500-foot blankets of creamy tufa 

23 



cut by scores of canyons ; hundreds of craters and thousands of square miles 
of lava beds, basalt, and cinders, and so much "volcanic glass" (obsidian) that 
it was the chief tool of the prehistoric population. 

The largest and the most impressive villages of cave-dwellings in the 
world, most of them already abandoned " when the world-seeking Genoese " 
sailed. 

The peerless and many-storied cliff -dwellings — ca.stles and forts and homes 
in the face of wild precipices or upon their tops — an aboriginal architecture 
as remarkable as any in any land. 

The twenty-six strange communal town republics of the descendants of 
the "cliff-dwellers," the modern Pueblos; some in fertile valleys, some (like 
Acoma and Moki) perched on barren and dizzy cliff tops. The strange dances, 
rites, dress, and customs of this ancient people who had solved the problem of 
irrigation, 6-story house building, and clean self-government, and even women's 
rights — long before Columbus was born. 

The noblest Caucasian ruins in America, north of ]\Icxico — the great 
stone and adobe churches reared by Franciscan missionaries, near three cen- 
turies ago, a thousand miles from the ocean, in the heart of the Southwest. 

Some of the most notable tribes of savage nomads — like the Navajos, whose 
blankets and silver work are pre-eminent, and the Apaches, who, man for man, 
have been probably the most successful warriors in history. 

All these, and a great deal more, make the Southwest a wonderland without 
a parallel. There are ruins as striking as the storied ones along the Rhine, and 
far more remarkable. There are peoples as picturesque as any in the Orient, and 
as romantic as the Aztecs and the Incas of whom we have learned such gilded 
fables, and there are natural wonders which have no peers whatever. 

Of the Canyon, and Other Wonders 

At the head of the list stands the Grand Canyon of the Colorado ; whether 
it is the " greatest wonder of the world " depends a little on our definition of 
*• wonder." Possibly it is no more wonderful than the fact that so tiny a fraction 
of the people who confess themselves the smartest in the world have ever seen 
it. As a people we dodder abroad to see scenery incomparably inferior. 

But beyond peradventure it is the greatest chasm in the world, and the 
most superb. Enough globe-trotters have seen it to establish that fact. Many 
have come cynically prepared to be disappointed ; to find it overdrawn and 
really not so stupendous as something else. It is, after all, a hard test that so 
be-bragged a wonder must endure under the critical scrutiny of them that have 
seen the earth and the fullness thereof. But I never knew the most self-satisfied 
veteran traveler to be disappointed in the Grand Canyon, or to patronize it. On 
the contrary, this is the very class of men who can best comprehend it, and I 
have seen them fairly break down in its awful presence. 

I do not know the Himalayas except b}- photograph and the testimony of 
men who have explored and climbed them, and who found the Grand Canyon 
an absolutely new experience. But I know the American continents pretty well, 
and have tramped their mountains, including the Andes — the next highest 
mountains in the world, after half a dozen of the Himalayas — and of all the 
famous quebradas of the Andes there is not one that would" count 5 percent on 
the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. For all their 25,000-foot peaks, their blue- 
white glaciers, imminent above the bald plateau, and green little bolsones 
(" pocket valleys ") of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador; for all their tremendous 
active volcanoes, like Saugay and Cotopaxi; for all an earthquake activity 



beside which the "shake " at Charleston was mere paper-doll play ; for all the 
steepest gradients in the world (and Peru is the only place in the world where 
a river falls 17,000 feet in 100 miles) — in all that marvelous 3,000-mile procession 
of giantism there is not one canyon which any sane person would for an instant 
compare with that titanic gash that the Colorado has chiseled through a compar- 
ativel)^ flat upland. Nor is there anything remotely approaching it in all the 
New World. So much I can say at first hand. As for the Old World, the 
explorer who shall find a gorge there one-half as great will win undying fame. 

The quebrada of the Apu-Rimac is a marvel of the Andes, with its vertigi- 
nous depths and its suspension bridge of wild vines. The Grand Canyon of the 
Arkansas, in Colorado, is a noble little slit in the mountains. The Franconia 
and White Mountain notches in New Hampshire are beautiful. The Yosemite 
and the Yellowstone canyons surpass the world, each in its way. But if all 
of these were hung up on the opposite wall of the Grand Canyon from you the 
chances are fifty to one that you could not tell t'other from which, nor any 
of them from the hundreds of other canyons which rib that vast vertebrate 
gorge. If the falls of Niagara were installed in the Grand Canyon between 
your visits and you knew it by the newspapers — next time you stood on that 
dizzy rimrock you would probably need good field-glasses and much patience 
before you could locate that cataract which in its place looks pretty big. If 
Mount Washington were plucked up bodily by the roots — not from where you 
see it, but from sea-level — and carefully set down in the Grand Canyon, you 
probably would not notice it next morning, unless its dull colors distinguished 
it in that innumerable congress of larger and painted giants. 

All this, which is literally true, is a mere trifle of what might be said in 
trying to fix a standard of comparison for the Grand Canyon. But I fancy 
there is no standard adjustable to the human mind. You may compare all 
you will — eloquently and from wide experience, and at last all similes fail. 
The Grand Canyon is just the Grand Canyon, and that is all you can say. I 
never have seen anyone who was prepared for it. I never have seen anyone 
who could grasp it in a week's hard exploration; nor anyone, except some rare 
Philistine, who could even think he had grasped it. I have seen people rave 
over it; better people struck dumb with it, even strong men who cried over it; 
but I have never yet seen the man or woman that expected it. 

It adds seriously to the scientific wonder and the universal impressiveness 
of this unparalleled chasm that it is not in some stupendous mountain range, but 
in a vast, arid, lofty floor of nearly 100,000 square miles — as it were, a crack in 
the upper story of the continent. There is no preparation for it. Unless you 
had been told, you would no more dream that out yonder amid the pines the 
flat earth is slashed to its very bowels, than you would expect to find an iceberg 
in Broadway. With a very ordinary running jump from the spot where you 
get your first glimpse of the canyon you could go down 2,000 feet without 
touching. It is sudden as a well. 

But it is no mere cleft. It is a terrific trough 6,000 to 7,000 feet deep, ten 
to twenty miles wide, hundreds of miles long, peopled with hundreds of peaks 
taller than any mountain east of the Rockies, yet not one of them with its 
head so high as your feet, and all ablaze with such color as no eastern or 
European landscape ever knew, even in the Alpen-glow. And as you sit upon 
the brink the divine scene-shifters give you a new canyon every hour. With 
each degree of the sun's course the great countersunk mountains we have 
been watching fade away, and new ones, as terrific, are carved by the wester- 
ing shadows. It is like a dissection of the whole cosmogony. And the purple 
shadows, the dazzling lights, the thunderstorms and snowstorms, the clouds and 
the rainbows that shift and drift in that vast subterranean arena below your 

25 



feet ! And amid those enchanted towers and castles which the vastness of the 
scale leads you to call "rocks," but which are in fact as big above the river-bed 
as the Rockies from Denver, and bigger than Mount Washington from Fabyan's 
or the Glen ! 

The Grand Canyon country is not only the hugest, but the most varied 
and instructive example on earth of one of the chief factors of earth-build- 
ing — erosion. It is the mesa country — the Land of Tables. Nowhere else on 
the footstool is there such an example of deep-gnawing water or of water 
high-carving. The sandstone mesas of the Southwest, the terracing of canyon 
walls, the castellation, battlementing, and clitf-making, ;he cutting down of a 
whole landscape except its precipitous islands of flat-topped rock, the thin lava 
table-cloths on tables loo feet high — these are a few ot the things which make 
the Southwest wonderful alike to the scientist and the mere sight-seer. 

That the canyon is not "too hard" is perhaps sufficiently indicated by the 
fact that I have taken thither ladies and children and men in their seventies, 
when the easiest way to get there was by a 70-mile stage ride, and that at 
six years old my little girl walked all the way from rim to bottom of canyon 
and came back on a horse the same day, and was next morning ready to go on 
a long tramp along the rim. 




■ ruriyht, 1S>9, by II. G. Peabudy. 

The A\'ortk Wall fron Grand Scenic Divide. 
26 




INFORMATION FOR TOURISTS 

Vreliminary 

There is only one way by which to directly reach the Grand Canyon of 
Arizona, and that is via the Santa Fe (The Atchison, Topeka & vSanta Fe Rail- 
Avay System). 

There are three ways of reaching the Canyon from the Santa Fe — rail 
from Williams, private conveyance from Flacrstaff and Peach Springs. 

The route from Flagstaff is not available in winter. The Peach Springs 
Toute is open in winter, but now little used. The bulk of the travel is via 
Williams, sixty-five miles north to Bright Angel — open all the }'ear. 



Three GateWat;s 

There are but three points from which an easy descent may be made of 
the south wall to the granite gorge of the Grand Canyon : 

1. At Grand View, down Berry's ((irand View) or Hance's (Red Canyon) 
trails. 

2. At Bright Angel, down Bright Angel Trail. 

3. At Bass' Camp, down Mystic Spring Trail. 

While the canyon may be reached over trails at other places outside of 
the district named (such as Lee's Ferry Trail, by wagon from Winslow ; j\Ioki 
Indian Trail, by way of Little Colorado Canyon ; and Diamond Creek road to 
Colorado River from Peach vSprings station), most tourists prefer the Bright 
Angel, Grand View, and Bass' Camp routes, because of the superior facilities 
and views there offered. The Peach Springs route is the only other one now 
used by the public to any extent. 

It is near Grand View that Marble Canyon ends and the Grand Canyon 
proper begins. Northward, a few miles away, is the mouth of the Little Colo- 
rado Canyon. Here the granite gorge is first seen. 

Bright Angel is approximately in the center, and Bass' Camp at the 
western end of the granite gorge. By wagon road it is eighteen miles from 
Bright Angel east to Grand View, and twenty-three miles west to Bass' Camp. 



In a nutshell, the Grand Canyon at Grand View is acconnted most sublime 
— a scene of wide outlooks and brilliant hues; at Bright Angel, deepest and 
most impressive — a scene that awakens the profoundest emotions; at Bass' 
Camp, the most varied — a scene of striking contrasts in form and color. 

Each locality has its special charm. All three should be visited, if time 
permits, as only by long observation can one gain even a superficial knowledge 
of what the Grand Canyon is. To know it intimately requires a longer stay 
and more careful study. 

The Ride from Williams 

Because of recent improvements in service the Grand Canyon of Arizona 
may now be visited, either in summer or winter, with reasonable comfort and 
without any hardship. No one need be deterred by fear of inclement weather 
or a tedious stage ride. The trip is entirely feasible for the average traveler 
every day in the year. 

Leaving the Santa Fe transcontinental train at Williams, Arizona, passen- 
gers change in same depot to a local train of the Grand Canyon Railway, which 
leaves Williams daily, and arrives at destination after a three hours' run. 

Williams is a busy town of 1,500 inhabitants, 378 iniles west of Albuquerque, 
on the Santa Fe. Here are located large sawmills, smelters, numerous well- 
stocked stores, and railroad division buildings. Prior to the disastrous fire in 
July, 1901, there were several excellent hotels. The one not destroyed affords 
good accommodations ; it has been recently enlarged and otherwise improved. 

There is usually ample time at Williams, between trains, for the ascent of 
Bill Williams ]\Iountain, which rises near the town to a height of 9,000 feet. 
Tourists will find the trip thoroughly enjoyable. It can be made in five hours 
on horseback in perfect safety. The trail is an easy one, first leading through 
a gently sloping path of pines, then steeply up to the wind-swept summit along- 
side a pretty stream bordered by thickets of quaking aspens. Chimney Rock, 
with its eagle's nest, is a noteworthy rock formation. On the summit is buried 
the historic pioneer scout, Bill Williams. From his resting-place there is a wide 
outlook, embracing, on clear days, the wall of the Grand Canyon, Verde River, 
Chino Valley, Jerome, Hell Canyon, Seligman, Ash Fork, and many neighbor- 
ing peaks. 

The railroad track to the canyon is remarkably smooth for a new line. It 
is built across a slightly rolling mesa, in places thickly wooded, in others open. 
The snow-covered vSan Francisco Peaks are on the eastern horizon. Kendricks, 
Sitgreaves, and Williams mountains are also visible. Red Butte, thirty miles 
distant, is a prominent local landmark. Before the terminus is reached the train 
climbs a long, high ridge and enters Coconino Forest, which resembles a natural 
park. The route here is amid fragrant pines, over low hills, and along occasional 
gulches and "washes." Taken under the favorable conditions which generally 
prevail at this high altitude, the journey is a novelty and a delight. 

At Destination 

The hotel at head of Bright Angel Trail is reached early in the evening. 
The tourist then finds himself on the verge of a high precipice, from which is 
obtained by moonlight a magnificent view of the opposite wall and of the inter- 
vening crags, towers, and slopes. The suddenness, the surprise, the revelation 
come as a fitting climax to a unique trip. After nightfall the air becomes cold, 
for here you are 7,000 feet above the sea; yet the absence of humidity, peculiar 
to these high altitudes, tnakes the chill less penetrating than on lower levels. By 
day, in the sunshine, the^e is usually a gcniaf warmth — then overcoats, gloves, 
and wraps are laid aside. 

28 



^Bright Angel Hotel 

The Bri«^ht Angel Hotel is managed by Mr. M. Buggeln, who also controls 
the stage line, trail stock, guides, etc. The hotel comprises a combination log 
and frame structure of eight rooms, with three frame annexes containing forty- 
six sleeping rooms, and (for summer use) several rows of tents, all clustered on 
the rim and surrounded by pines and spruces. Each room in the annexes has 
one or two beds, a stove, dressing table, and Navajo rugs. In the log-cabin 
part of the main edifice are two large rooms. One is used for reception purposes, 
being warmed by means of an old-fashioned fireplace and tastefully carpeted 
with Indian rugs, also furnished with capacious rocking chairs and a piano ; the 
other of these two rooms is for the office. 

Good meals are prepared by expert cooks and served in a pleasant dining- 
room. In a word, the hotel facilities are good, far better than one might expect 
to find for the reasonable rate charged. There is no " roughing it " ; everything 
is homelike and comfortable. One must not, however, expect all the city 
luxuries. A telephone and telegraph line directly connects the hotel with the 
outer world at Williams. 

Note. — A fine modern hotel of fifty rooms, with cottage annexes, to be known as Bright 
Angel Tavern, will be built in this vicinity during 1903 and managed by Mr. Fred Harvey. 
It will be a permanent affair and will provide all the latest conveniences. 

While one ought to remain at least a week, a stop-over of three days from 
the transcontinental trip will allow practically two days at the canyon. One 
full day should be devoted to an excursion down Bright Angel Trail, and the 
other to walks and drives along the rim. Another day on the rim — making 
a four-days' stop-over in all — will enable visitors to get more satisfactory views 
of this stupendous wonder. 

Down 'Bright Angel Trail 

The trail here is perfectly safe and is generally open the year round. In 
midwinter it is liable to be closed for a few days at the top by snow, but such 
blockade is only temporary It reaches from the hotel four miles to the top 
of the granite wall immediately overlooking the Colorado River. At this point 
the river is 1,200 feet below, while the hotel on the rim is 4,300 feet above. 
The trip is commonly made on horseback, accompanied by a guide ; charges 
for trail stock and services of guide are moderate. A strong person, accus- 
tomed to mountain climbing, can make the round trip on foot in one day, by 
starting early enough ; but the average traveler will soon discover that a horse 
is a necessity, especially for the upward climb. 

Eight hours are required for going down and coming back, allowing two 
hours for lunch, rest, and sight-seeing. Those wishing to reach the river leave 
the main trail at Indian Garden Spring and follow the downward course of 
Willow and Pipe creeks. Owing to the abrupt descent from this point, part of 
the side trail must be traversed on foot. Provision is made for those wishing 
to camp out at night on the river's edge. 

The famous guide, John Hance, is now located at Bright Angel. 

What to Bring 

If much tramping is done, stout, thick shoes should be provided. Ladies 
will find that short walking skirts are a convenience ; divided skirts are pref- 
erable, but not essential, for the horseback journey down the zigzag trail. 
Traveling caps and (in summer) broad-brimmed straw hats are useful toilet 
adjuncts. Otherwise ordinary clothing will suflftce. A good field glass and 
camera should be brought along. 

29 




Bright Angel Hotel. 



The round-trip ticket rate, Williams to Grand Canyon and return, is only 
$6.50. Adding- $6 for two days' stay at Canyon Hotel, $1 for part of a day 
at hotel in Williams, $1.50 for probable proportion of cost of guide, $3 for trail 
stock, and the total necessary expense of the three days' stop-over is about $18 
for one person ; each additional day only adds $3 to the cost for hotel. 

Stop-overs will be granted at Williams on railroad and Pullman tickets if 
advance application is made to train and Pullman conductors. Trunks may 
be stored in the station at Williams free of charge by arrangement with ticket 
agent. ^ 

Grand VieW 

Grand View (previously inentioned) may be reached in summer by private 
conveyance from Flagstaff, a distance of seventy-five miles ; or at any time of 
the year by stage from Bright Angel, sixteen miles along the rim. The rate 
for round trip. Bright Angel to Grand View, is $2.50 to $5 each person, 
according to size of party. While Flagstaff is an interesting place to visit — 
with its near-by cliff and cave dwellings and San Francisco Peaks — and the 
trip thence to the Grand Canyon is a novel one, distance and time are such 
that most trav^elers prefer to go in by railroad from Williams. 

Grand View Hotel is a large, rustic structure, built near the head of 
Berry's Trail and about three miles from Hance's Trail, in the midst of tall 
pines and overlooking the mighty bend of the Colorado. This is the point to 
which visitors were conducted in the days of the old stage line from Flagstaff. 

It is noted for its wide views of the Coconino Forest and Painted Desert, as 
well as for the beautiful forms and color of the canyon itself. A favorite trip 
here is to go down one trail and up the other. The hotel accommodations are 
quite good ; capacity, forty guests; rate, $3 per day. 

30 



"Bass' Camp 

At the western end of the granite gorg-c is INIystic Spring Trail, an easy 
route down to the Cokjrado River and up the other side to Button's Point and 
Powell's Plateau. The magnificent panorama eastward from Havasupai Point 
takes in fifty miles of the can^ron, while westward is the unique, table-like 
formation which characterizes the lower reaches of the river. The views from 
both rims are pronounced by noted artists and explorers to be unequaled. 

Present accommodations at Havasupai Hotel (Bass' Camp), near head of this 
trail, are fairh^ g'<^'C)d, consisting of a cabin, several tents, and good trail stock ; 
wholesome meals are served in comfortable style. A new hotel is to be built 
here during 1903. Bass' Camp is now reached by stage from Coconino, a 
station on the Grand Canyon Railway, or one may take a team direct from 
Bright Angel. 

A visit should be made to the Havasupai Indian village in Cataract Canyon. 
Any bona fide tourist can procure an introductory letter from the railroad 
agent at Williams or Grand Canyon. On presenting same to the U. S. Indian 
agent at Supai, permission will be granted to enter the reservation. This is an 
unique trip of about forty miles, first by wagon across a timbered plateau, then 
on horseback down precipitous Topocobya Trail, along the rocky floors of 
Topocobya and Cataract canyons, deep in the earth, to a place of gushing springs, 
green fields, and enchanting waterfalls. Here live the Havasupai Indians, one 
of the most interesting tribes in Arizona. The round trip from Bright Angel 
or Bass' Camp is made in three or four days at an expense of $35 to $50 each 
for a party of three persons. 

Peach Springs *R^oute 

The trip in winter from Peach Springs station down to the Colorado River, 
through Diamond Creek Canyon, is most enjoyable. Owing to the low altitude 
here (4,780 feet at Peach vSprings and approximately 2,000 feet at the river) 
the air is usually balmy from November to April ; in summer the heat is a 
considerable drawback. 

A journey of but twelve miles leads you through a miniature Grand Canyon 
with scenery increasingly sublime. On either side are abrupt walls and won- 
derfully suggestive formations — castles, domes, minarets. On your left, glanc- 
ing backward, is an exact reproduction of "Westminster Abbey. 

This comparatively easy jaunt brings you by team to the very brink of the 
swift-rolling Colorado, whereas by the other Grand Canyon gateways you are 
landed on the rim and must go down thousands of feet by a steep trail. The 
outlook here is restricted to the river itself and the great walls rising precipi- 
tously from its banks — a scene well worth while, but not so impressive as the 
wide sweep of the canyon visible from the rim. 

Following Diamond Creek to its source you may walk along the bed of the 
stream between walls thousands of feet high and glistening in the white sun- 
light as if varnished. The upper part of Diamond Creek is a veritable terrace 
of fern bowers, luxuriant vegetation, crystal cascades, and sequestered meadow 
parks. 

Flagstaff and Vicinity 

The town itself is an interesting place, prettily situated in the heart of the 
San Francisco uplift and surrounded by a pine forest. 

Its hotels, business houses, lumber mills, and residences denote thrift. On 
a neighboring hill is the Lowell Observatory, noted for its many contributions 
to astronomical science. 

31 




.^<i/! rrancii 



Eight miles southwest from Fhagstaff — reached by a pleasant drive along a 
level road through tall pines — is Walnut Canyon, a rent in the earth several 
hundred feet deep and three miles long, with steep terraced walls of limestone. 
Along the shelving terraces, under beetling projections of the strata, are scores 
of quaint cliff dwellings, the most famous group of its kind in this region. 
The larger abodes are divided into several compartments by cemented walls, 
many parts of which are still intact. It is believed that these cliff dwellers 
were of the same stock as the Pueblo Indians of to-day and that they lived here 
about 800 years ago. 

Nine miles from Flagstaff and only half a mile from the old stage road to 
the Grand Canyon, upon the summit of an extinct crater, the remarkable ruins 
of the cave-dwellers may be seen. 

The magnificent San Francisco Peaks, visible from every part of the 
country within a radius of a hundred miles, lie just north of Flagstaff. There 
are three peaks which form one mountain. From Flagstaff a road has been 
constructed up Humphrey's Peak, whose summit is 12,750 feet above sea level. 
It is a good mountain road, and the entire distance from Flagstaff is only about 
ten miles. The trip to the summit and back is easily made in one day 

Jlnnouncement 

The Santa Fe has published anew and beautiful book on the Grand Canyon. 
It contains articles by Hamlin Garland, Harriet INIonroe, Robert Brewster 
Stanton, Chas. S. Gleed, John L. Stoddard, Charles Dudley Warner, R. D. Salis- 
bury, " Fitz Mac," Nat M. Brigham, Joaquin Miller, Edwin Burritt Smith, David 
Starr Jordan, C. E. Beecher, Henry P. Ewing, and Thomas Moran, as well as 
the authors represented in this pamphlet. The book has more than a hundred 
pages, illustrated with half-tones and portraits ; the cover is from a painting of 
the Canyon by Thomas Moran, and is lithographed in seven colors. It will be 
forwarded on receipt of fifty cents. 

A beautiful and unique color picture of the Grand Canyon, mounted to 
show all its colors as in nature, may be had for twenty-five cents. 

Address W. J. BLACK, 
Ad. 71 — 2-3-03. loM. Gen'l Passenger Agent, A., T. & S. F. Ry., CHICAGO. 





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